Program Spotlight

Spotlight: Granting Visitors a Behind-the-Scenes Pass—The Process Gallery at the DeCordova Museum & Sculpture Park
By Amy Briggs, Manager of Museum Guide and Tour Programs, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park. Amy participated in the research, planning, and installation of the DeCordova’s current Process Gallery as an intern in the Tufts Museum Studies Program over the summer of 2007.

Provide information that will encourage them to take another look at the artworks in the galleries,
Give artists a voice by providing a place to share the thoughts and work that went into the making of their artwork,
Present viewers with the human element of art-making by inviting them to experience some of the artists’ choices and challenges in the development of the artwork. 

The Process Gallery is comprised of two main types of “stations:” artist stations and interactive stations. Artist stations feature the main exhibition’s artist (or artists). They provide background information about the artist and help visitors understand the artistic process including the artist’s source of inspiration, materials, tools, and goals. These elements are demonstrated in several ways. Artist stations may include:

• Shelves with the artist’s tools, materials, and three-dimensional sources of inspiration.
• Television monitor with a video of the artist at work or discussing the work.
• Listening station with headphones where visitors can listen to the artist speaking about his/her work, including inspiration and processes.
• Photocopies of the artist’s sketchbook on the wall or laminated and turned into a book for visitors to flip through.
• Photos of the artist at work.
• Quotation in vinyl lettering capturing the voice of the artist.
• Photos and map showing the artist’s work in the museum and where to locate it.

Interactive components of the Process Gallery are sometimes a part of artist stations. For example, in the 2007 Annual exhibition, artist Anne Lilly exhibited several kinetic sculptures. To best demonstrate how she creates these sculptures, her artist station in the Process Gallery showcased several different elements of one of her sculptures. Visitors could manipulate them and explore how the artist created her work. In the same show, artist Samantha Fields exhibited a series of residential sidings embroidered with yarn in traditional wallpaper pattern motifs. In her station, visitors could try out the materials Fields used by sewing their own piece of siding with yarn, plastic, and kid-friendly needles.

Other times, interactive components of the Process Gallery deal with multiple artists from the exhibition. For example, in the current exhibit Trainscape: Installation Art for Model Railroads, a large portion of the Process Gallery is devoted to an interactive station titled “All Aboard! Create Your Own Trainscape.” Here  visitors have the opportunity to explore several themes that we found the artists dealt with in their installations, including scale, reflection, translucence, levity, and realistic representation versus abstraction. A wooden miniature train set moves throughout three tables with materials relating to these themes available for visitors to create their own unique landscapes.

There are many types of possible interactive stations for visitors within the Process Gallery, ranging from the opportunity to create mock-artworks in the styles of the artists from the exhibition to responding to ideas in writing. For instance, visitors to the Process Gallery during the 2007 Annual exhibition could react to three different writing prompts inspired by a drawing of a smiling whale by the artist Ria Brodell. One visitor answered “Say Cheese” when asked what she would title this drawing.  In the spring 2007 exhibition, Big Bang! Abstract Painting for the 21^st Century, a station in the Process Gallery featured a computer where visitors could create a one-of-a-kind algorithm image in the style of artist Reese Inman to print and take home with them. In the 2007 Annual exhibition Process Gallery visitors learned about scale through artist Sandra Allen’s process of using photographs to make large-scale drawings. Like Allen, visitors drew components of a photograph on small squares of a large grid. Their contributions added up to one giant drawing. 

Learning Considerations

As museum educators, we understand the benefits of learning in a social context. In The Museum Experience, John Falk and Lynn Dierking note that “most museum visitors, young or old, come as part of a social group.”[ii] According to them, “Learning is almost always socially mediated". People learn while talking to, listening to, and watching other people. They incorporate other people’s ideas in their own; even feelings and physical actions are amalgamations forged during social contacts.”[iii] Thus, the Process Gallery takes advantage of social learning as much as possible. One of the best ways to facilitate social learning is to design the space to foster conversation and group interaction. In designing for groups, it is also important to consider multi-generational learning that occurs in families.

In designing the Process Gallery, we also consider Howard Gardner’s learning style theories. Gardner proposed that “people are born with the potential to develop a multiplicity of ‘intelligences,’ which can be added to the conventional logical and linguistic skills constituting I.Q,” and came up with seven “intelligences”  (linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily/kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal.[iv]) Whenever possible, we take into account each of these possible learning styles to ensure that each visitor is able to have a meaningful educational experience within the space.

In addition to capitalizing on the benefits of social learning and the various theories surrounding learning styles, the Process Gallery also makes use of the concept of free-choice learning. As John Falk and Lynn Dierking note in Learning from Museums, “Not only does physical setting create a context in which learning can occur, but it also has the potential to create a desire to learn. In the right setting, real or imagined, the learner is surrounded by sights, sounds, and textures that foster curiosity and encourage exploration. So motivated, learning proceeds effortlessly and intrinsically; there is no need to force, prompt, or bribe.”[v] The Process Gallery supports this “effortless” and “intrinsic” learning.

Fig. Visitors may experiment with materials to create their own trainscapes.

Is a Process Gallery a Possibility for Your Museum?

Is a Process Gallery a possibility for your museum? Maybe not. DeCordova features contemporary art—most of its artists are still alive. Even more convenient for the Process Gallery, many of these artists live in the New England area. Thus, interviewing artists, visiting their studios, and getting materials and other Process Gallery components from them is fairly easy. However, concepts of DeCordova’s Process Gallery can be applied to educational and interactive spaces within art, history, science, and children’s museums. A science museum might explore the processes of the scholars and scientists that contributed to the concepts revealed in its exhibits. A history museum may give the historian a unique voice in such a space. A non-contemporary art museum might offer the “voice” of a long-dead artist through documents and analyses of his/her personality and work processes.

Art museums have long carried with them a stigma of being places of “Please Don’t Touch” and shushing by security guards. Spaces like DeCordova’s Process Gallery offer refreshing experiences for visitors, challenging these archaic misconceptions. They provoke visitors to view and understand art in new ways, and demystify artistic processes. They prove that art—and museums—can be fun and involving. As museum professionals working towards creating the optimal experience for visitors, spaces like the Process Gallery will become increasingly prevalent in the museum world.

Footnotes:

1. DeCordova Museum & Sculpture Park Education Department, Process Gallery Grant Narrative (Lincoln, MA: 2004), 1.
2. John H. Falk and Lynn D. Dierking, The Museum Experience (Washington, D.C.: Whalesback Books, 1992), 20.
3. Ibid, 100.
4. As discussed in The Museum Experience, 101-102.
5. John H. Falk and Lynn D. Dierking, Learning from Museums: Visitor Experience and the Making of Meaning  (Walnut Creek,: AltaMira Press, 2000), 196.
6. Marianna Adams, “The Dilemma of Interactive Art Museum Spaces,” Art Education, September 2003, 51.